The New York Mets and San Diego Padres are both now one win away from a berth in the National League Championship Series.
The Mets defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-2, on Tuesday night, while the Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-5.
It was a compelling night of baseball that saw the Mets and Padres take 2-1 series leads in their best-of-five matchups. Here are some takeaways from the NL Division Series action.
MANAEA’S MOMENT
As Mets starter Sean Manaea walked off the mound in the sixth inning on Tuesday, he let out what looked like a primal roar. This was a pitcher who was in the middle of authoring the best post-season start of his career and the look on his face showed it.
That sixth inning offered the turning point of the game. The Mets were up 2-0 but the Phillies applied pressure when Manaea issued walks to Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner to open the frame. Up came Bryce Harper and you could just smell a Philadelphia comeback in the works.
Manaea lit a fire, but credit to the left-hander for extinguishing it right away.
He began the at-bat against Harper with a changeup on the inside part of the plate that induced a swinging strike from the slugger. Then, Manaea followed with two outside sweepers that Harper chased on.
It was a sequence of three clutch pitches to one of the best hitters on the planet in one of the most pressurized moments of Manaea’s career and it ended with a punchout. It felt like that moment took the wind out of the Phillies and the next batter, Nick Castellanos, lined into a double-play that almost felt anti-climactic.
Manaea finished the night allowing just one run on three hits over seven-plus innings. He walked two, struck out six and registered an impressive 19 whiffs. Pitching at home in the Mets’ first game at Citi Field in over two weeks, the 32-year-old Manaea enjoyed his star-making moment.
The outing was easily the best of his five career post-season outings and it was no doubt sweeter to him given that in 2022, while pitching for the Padres, Manaea fell apart by allowing five runs in 1.1 innings to the same Phillies in Game 4 of the NLCS.
BOXING MATCH
There was a roughly 30-minute span during the Padres-Dodgers matchup where we were reminded just how dramatic playoff baseball can be.
In the bottom of the second inning, the Dodgers’ defence let them down with key miscues by first baseman Freddie Freeman and shortstop Miguel Rojas. David Peralta drove in two runs with a double and, a few batters later, Padres superstar Fernando Tatis Jr. put an exclamation on the frame with a two-run home run that brought nearly unsafe decibel levels to Petco Park.
The Padres had just put up six runs on Dodgers starter Walker Buehler and it looked like the game was quickly heading in the direction of a rout, which is what happened in San Diego’s 10-2 victory in Game 2.
The Dodgers refused to let that happen, though.
Rojas led off the next inning with a single, before Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts each did the same to load the bases. Freeman lined out to shallow left field, but Teoscar Hernandez followed with a 106-m.p.h.-missile over the centre-field fence.
The grand slam cut the Padres’ lead to 6-5 and essentially made this into a game again just minutes after it looked over.
For a moment, this felt like an actual boxing match, with the Padres and Dodgers trading haymakers through the swings of Tatis and Hernandez.
Truly exhilarating stuff.
PADRES PEN POPS DODGERS BALLOON
While the early innings of Game 3 were a slugfest, the Padres bullpen simply halted any further momentum from the visiting club.
Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, Tanner Scott and Robert Suarez combined to allow just one hit over four scoreless innings, striking out six and walking none.
It was an overwhelming display of high-octane gas, with Estrada and Scott each hitting 99 m.p.h. on the radar gun, while closer Suarez fired six pitches that registered over 100 m.p.h.
The Padres bullpen, remade before the trade deadline by general manager A. J. Preller, is a truly scary bunch. It led baseball with 2.2 wins above replacement and a 30.1 per cent strikeout rate since Aug. 1 and bears watching as the post-season progresses.
It can significantly shorten games for the Padres and, as we saw on Tuesday, has the ability to completely smother an opposing lineup.